Embracing the Anthropocene - Welcome to the World WITH Us, for better & worse.

USGS Center for EROS and NASA Landsat Project Office Satellite image of part of the Bolivian Amazon , converted from rain forest to pasture. Following up on my coverage of the first scientific conference on the proposition that we have entered a geological epoch of our own making, the Anthropocene , Room for Debate has assembled a great cast of characters to discuss whether this is a good, bad or indifferent thing . Weighing in are Emma Marris , the author of “Rambunctious Garden “; Jon Foley , the director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota; Brad Allenby , a professor of engineering and ethics at Arizona State University; Ronald Bailey , science correspondent for Reason magazine; Erle C. Ellis , an ecologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (who spoke at the London meeting ); and Ruth DeFries , an ecologist at Columbia Univer...